Double attack in southern Iraq kills more than 80
A coordinated attack on a restaurant and a security checkpoint in southern Iraq killed more than 80 people Thursday, police and health officials said, in a rare spasm of violence targeting a route used by Shiite pilgrims to visit their holiest shrines. Gunmen wearing military uniforms stormed into a restaurant in Nasiriyah, about 200 miles […]Tamer El-Ghobashy and Mustafa Salim write for The Washington Post:
A coordinated attack on a restaurant and a security checkpoint in southern Iraq killed more than 80 people Thursday, police and health officials said, in a rare spasm of violence targeting a route used by Shiite pilgrims to visit their holiest shrines.
Gunmen wearing military uniforms stormed into a restaurant in Nasiriyah, about 200 miles south of Baghdad, around lunchtime and opened fire, the head of the provincial health department said. Patrons in the eatery included Iranian and Iraqi pilgrims traveling north toward the Shiite shrines in Karbala and Najaf.
Moments later, a car driven by a suicide bomber exploded at a police checkpoint near the restaurant, which sits along Highway 1, the road that connects Baghdad with Dhi Qar province, where the attack took place.
